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Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - 16:43--DONBASS News
The NATO war preparation against Russia, 'Operation Atlantic Resolve', is in full swing. 2,000 US tanks will be sent in coming days from Germany to Eastern Europe, and 1,600 US tanks is deployed to storage facilities in the Netherlands. At the same time, NATO countries are sending thousands of soldiers in to Russian borders.
According to US Army Europe, 4,000 troops and 2,000 tanks will arrive in three US transport ships to Germany next weekend. From Bremerhaven, US troops and huge amount of military material, will be transported to Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

14.01.2017--RT
Chinese state media has warned that the US would have to launch a "large-scale war" to prevent Beijing from accessing islands it has built in the South China Sea. It comes after secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson said such access should be restricted.
"Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish," the state-sanctioned Global Times newspaper wrote on its English-language website.
Read more
Japan to partner up with regional allies to bolster Southeast Asian coast guards
It went on to stress that the US "has no absolute power to dominate the South China Sea," warning that Tillerson "had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories."
The article also said that China has so far "shown restraint" when Trump's cabinet picks have expressed "radical views," as the president-elect has not yet been sworn in. However, it stressed that the US "should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of their threats."

Infinite Unknow
Brought to you by Mossad’s DEBKAfile:
– Putin Again Warns Netanyahu Hands Off Syria (DEBKAfile, May 14, 2013):
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spent three hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Tuesday, May, 14. He came for a last-ditch attempt to head off the supply of advanced Russian anti-air S-300 missile systems to Syria. Instead, the Russian leader turned the conversation around to focus implicitly on Israel’s air strikes against Damascus on May 3 and May 5. After their conversation he issued a warning: “In this crucial period it is especially important to avoid any moves that can shake the situation.”
This was clearly a hands-off caution to Israel not to repeat its attacks on Damascus. And, furthermore, after “shaking the situation” in Syria by its air attacks, Israel was in no position to demand that Russia avoid selling Syria advanced weapons.
The prime minister, for his part, warned that the entire Middle East was in a dangerous state of volatility.
He was accompanied by Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. Opposite him sat Mikhail Fradkov, SVR Director.
Kochavi laid before the Russian leader the information Israel had gathered on the state of Syria’s chemical weapons with relevance to their transfer to the Lebanese Hizballah.
Before Netanyahu’s arrival for the meeting, Moscow took two preparatory steps:
1. Russian diplomats leaked to the London-based Arab press a report that the S-300 missiles had already arrived in Syria. According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Moscow had delivered 200 launchers (probably missiles) and the Syrian missile teams already knew how to use them. By this leak, the Israeli prime minister was being informed that his journey to Sochi was a waste of time and that the use of S-300 missiles for shooting down Israeli Air Force planes was no longer controlled by Moscow but by Damascus.
2. The prominent strategic analyst, Viktor Kremenyuk of The USA and Canada Institute in Moscow, reported Tuesday that Netanyahu arrived in Sochi to indirectly let Putin know that “Israel would destroy the S-300s when they are delivered and start being assembled.”
The deputy director of an important Russian think tank which advises the Kremlin on North American policy does not tend to make idle comments.
debkafile’s Moscow sources interpreted Kremenyuk’s remark as a means of informing the Israeli leader that Moscow was not impressed by such threats. Instead of pushing Putin to stop the S-300 missiles, Israel would be more advantageously employed urging the Obama administration to adopt a more realistic stand on Syria and Bashar Assad.
In Moscow’s view, Washington must be brought to give up its threat of Western military intervention in Syria, of which the Israeli air strikes appeared to Putin as the harbinger, and come to terms with Assad’s presence in any political solution of the Syrian conflict.
These positions the Russian President had conveyed previously to US Secretary of State John Kerry and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He made it clear to Netanyahu that he stood by them as firmly as ever. Therefore, say debkafile’s sources, so long as both powers remain entrenched in their positions, there is not much hope of their coming together on an international conference to resolve the Syrian conflict.
debkafile’s military sources add: It is also unlikely that the Russian and Israeli leaders had a chance to work out reciprocal ground rules for the Russian officers supervising the S-300 missile operations in Syria to avoiding hitting Israeli Air Force jets or for Israeli bombers to refrain from destroying them.
The S-300 is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 200-km ranges.
Israel is concerned that Moscow may decided to send the six S-300 batteries carrying 144 missiles due for Syria along with Russian missile and air defense specialists. They will also be available for operating the missiles effectively for downing Israeli Air Force planes striking targets in Syria and Lebanon. Israel will be forced to think twice before attacking the S-300 batteries for fear of hitting the Russian officers. Putin is therefore placing a severe constraint on Israel’s operational freedom by spreading an anti-air missile cover over the Syrian, Hizballah and the Iranian Basij forces fighting for Bashar Assad.

Fri Jan 13, 2017 4:15PM--PressTV
US President-elect Donald Trump's pick for the Defense Department, retired Marine General James Mattis, says Washington must be ready to confront Moscow, urging caution about working with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mattis made the comments during his confirmation hearing before the Senate on Thursday, putting Russia at the top of a list of threats facing the United States.
“I am all for engagement [with Russia], but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to,” Trump’s nominee for the Pentagon said. “He [Putin] has chosen to be both a strategic competitor and adversary in key areas. I have very modest expectations about areas of cooperation with Mr. Putin.”
Asked about the main threats to the US interests, Mattis said, "I would consider the principle threats to start with Russia."
He went on to say that the world order is “under biggest attacks since World War Two, from Russia, terrorist groups, and China’s actions in the South China Sea.”
Mattis further noted that he intended to meet with the new Trump national security team to "craft a strategy to confront Russia for what it's done," when questioned about the possibility of new US sanctions against Moscow following its alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election through cyberattacks.

以下并非时政分析，但很有意思:
Prophecies of Nostradamus中对第三次世界大战的预言
这是其中的一种Interpretation
link: tedmontgomery.com/bblovrvw/endtimes/Nostradamus/01.html
你会震惊的发现，它与现实某些部分的吻合。
还有，报导
Constitutional changes to galvanize Turkey: President Erdoğan--http:hurriyetdailynews.com/
Once adopted, the sweeping constitutional changes now facing parliament will serve to re-energize Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 14.
"Entry into force of the constitutional changes debated by parliament will have a galvanizing effect on our country," Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in Istanbul, at the opening of a new building for Borsa Istanbul, the nation's stock exchange.
"No one can stand in front of the new Turkey's rise and building itself up," he added.
Erdoğan stressed that the final decision on the proposed changes, including a shift to an executive presidential system, would be made by the Turkish people in a referendum following the required passage by parliament.
"The nation's will is very important for that. Right now there is an understanding [in parliament] which cannot tolerate the national will and also cannot tolerate it [the changes] going to a referendum."
Erdoğan also spoke about changes to the way foreigners could gain Turkish citizenship. "People who enter Turkey with $2 million in investment or bring $2 million [to Turkey] can gain Turkish citizenship," he said.
These changes amount to a “new understanding” of “global citizenship,” the president suggested.
January/14/2017
and
Turkish parliament approves articles transferring vast powers to president--
link: hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-parliament-approves-articles-transferring-vast-powers-to-president.aspx?
pageID=238&nID=108470&NewsCatID=338

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 会是 the Antichrist 吗?
Turkey’s parliament has approved three more items from a controversial constitutional amendment draft in late-night voting sessions on Jan. 12 and early Jan. 13, reducing many of the legislature’s own powers in favor of strengthening the president.

可悲的是，大众在上帝，民主。。。。。。等的旗帜下
打了一场又一场只有少数人得益的战争
看看今天的社会是多么的不平等
Capital in the Twenty-First Century, written by the French economist Thomas Piketty, summarised in four paragraphs
link: economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains
It is the economics book that took the world by storm. Capital in the Twenty-First Century, written by the French economist Thomas Piketty, was published in French in 2013 and in English in March 2014. The English version quickly became an unlikely bestseller, and it prompted a broad and energetic debate on the book’s subject: the outlook for global inequality. Some reckon it heralds or may itself cause a pronounced shift in the focus of economic policy, toward distributional questions. The Economist hailed Professor Piketty as "the modern Marx" (Karl, that is). But what is his book all about?
Capital draws on more than a decade of research by Piketty and a handful of other economists, detailing historical changes in the concentration of income and wealth. This pile of data allows Piketty to sketch out the evolution of inequality since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In the 18th and 19th centuries western European society was highly unequal. Private wealth dwarfed national income and was concentrated in the hands of the rich families who sat atop a relatively rigid class structure. This system persisted even as industrialisation slowly contributed to rising wages for workers. Only the chaos of the first and second world wars and the Depression disrupted this pattern. High taxes, inflation, bankruptcies and the growth of sprawling welfare states caused wealth to shrink dramatically, and ushered in a period in which both income and wealth were distributed in relatively egalitarian fashion. But the shocks of the early 20th century have faded and wealth is now reasserting itself. On many measures, Piketty reckons, the importance of wealth in modern economies is approaching levels last seen before the first world war.
From this history, Piketty derives a grand theory of capital and inequality. As a general rule wealth grows faster than economic output, he explains, a concept he captures in the expression r > g (where r is the rate of return to wealth and g is the economic growth rate). Other things being equal, faster economic growth will diminish the importance of wealth in a society, whereas slower growth will increase it (and demographic change that slows global growth will make capital more dominant). But there are no natural forces pushing against the steady concentration of wealth. Only a burst of rapid growth (from technological progress or rising population) or government intervention can be counted on to keep economies from returning to the “patrimonial capitalism” that worried Karl Marx. Piketty closes the book by recommending that governments step in now, by adopting a global tax on wealth, to prevent soaring inequality contributing to economic or political instability down the road.

The book has unsurprisingly attracted plenty of criticism. Some wonder whether Piketty is right to think that the future will look like the past. Theory argues that it should become ever harder to earn a good return on wealth the more there is of it. And today’s super-rich (think of Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg) mostly come by their wealth through work, rather than via inheritance. Others argue that Piketty’s policy recommendations are more ideologically than economically driven and could do more harm than good. But many of the sceptics nonetheless have kind words for the book’s contributions, in terms of data and analysis. Whether or not Professor Piketty succeeds in changing policy, he will have influenced the way thousands of readers and plenty of economists think about these issues.

Global inequality may be much worse than we think
Jason Hickel--theguardian
link: theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/08/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think
It’s familiar news by now. Oxfam’s figures have gone viral: the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century.
For most people, this is all they know about global inequality. But Oxfam’s wealth figures don’t quite tell the whole story. What about income inequality? And – more importantly – what about inequalities between countries? If we expand our view beyond the usual metrics, we can learn a lot more about how unequal our world has become.
The first thing to say about Oxfam’s numbers is that they present a very conservative picture. Given that the rich hide so much of their wealth in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, it is impossible to know how much they really have. Recent estimates suggest that up to $32tn is stored away in tax havens – around one sixth of the world’s total private wealth. If we were to add that to Oxfam’s metrics, inequality would look much, much worse.
But that’s wealth. Many analysts object that we shouldn’t be measuring wealth inequality, but rather income inequality. This has been a major criticism of Oxfam’s numbers. And when you look at income inequality, it doesn’t seem so bad. At least not according to the dominant narrative. Branko Milanovic, one of the world’s leading experts in global income inequality, argues that while inequality is getting worse within countries, on a global scale it is actually getting better.
We can measure income inequality with the Gini index. A score of 0 represents total equality and a score of 1 represents total inequality, where one person has everything and everyone else has nothing. According to Milanovic, the global Gini index has decreased slightly, from 0.72 in 1988 to 0.71 in 2008. So perhaps we shouldn’t be overly worried about inequality.
The Gini index is a troublesome measure, though, because it only captures relative changes. If the incomes of the rich and the poor increase by the same rate, then the Gini index remains the same, even though absolute inequality is increasing. In other words, if person A has $10k and person B has $100k, and then both of them double their income, the Gini remains the same, even though the income gap will have grown from $90k to $180k.
Economist Robert Wade argues that this is a highly misleading measurement, as it obscures the true extent of inequality. We should be using the absolute Gini index, he says. So what happens if we do that? We see that inequality has exploded over the past few decades, from 0.57 in 1988 to 0.72 in 2005.
Inequality between countries has been increasing by orders of magnitude over the past two hundred years
But hold on, you might say. Income inequality among individuals might be getting worse, but surely the gap between poor countries and rich countries is narrowing. The international development industry is helping to bridge the chasm between the west and the rest, right? This is a common opinion; I hear it all the time from students at the London School of Economics, where I teach. After all, “convergence theory” holds that, because poor countries grow at a faster rate than rich countries, over time the gap between the two will automatically diminish.
Unfortunately, it’s not true. In fact, history shows exactly the opposite. Inequality between countries has been increasing by orders of magnitude over the past two hundred years, and shows no signs of slowing.
There are a few ways we can look at this. Probably the most common way to think about global inequality is to measure the gap between the richest and poorest countries in real income per capita. Using data from the Maddison Project, we see that in 1960, at the end of colonialism, people living in the world’s richest country were 33 times richer than people living in the poorest country. That’s quite a substantial gap. But then by 2000, after neoliberal globalisation had run its course, they were a shocking 134 times richer. And that’s not counting extreme outliers, like small oil-rich kingdoms in the Middle East or tiny offshore tax havens. This isn’t convergence.
If we look at it in absolute terms, it’s just as bad. From 1960 to today, based on the data from the Maddison Project, the absolute gap between the average incomes of people in the richest and poorest countries has grown by 135%.
Of course, this metric overstates inequality by focusing on countries at either extreme. We can correct for this by looking at regional differences. The best way to do this is to measure the gap, in real terms, between the GDP per capita of the world’s dominant power (the United States) and that of various regions of the global South. Using World Bank figures, we see that since 1960 the gap for Latin America has grown by 206%, the gap for sub-Saharan Africa has grown by 207%, and the gap for South Asia has grown by 196%. In other words, the global inequality gap has roughly tripled in size.
Over the past few decades inequality has become so bad that, in 2000, Americans were nine times richer than Latin Americans, 72 times richer than sub-Saharan Africans, and a mind-popping 80 times richer than south Asians. These numbers give us a sense for how unfairly the global economy distributes our planet’s wealth.
Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries
It doesn’t matter how you slice it; global inequality is getting worse. Much worse. Convergence theory turned out to be wildly incorrect. Inequality doesn’t disappear automatically; it all depends on the balance of political power in the global economy. As long as a few rich countries have the power to set the rules to their own advantage, inequality will continue to worsen. The debt system, structural adjustment, free trade agreements, tax evasion, and power asymmetries in the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO are all major reasons that inequality is getting worse instead of better.
It’s time we face up to the imbalances that distort our global economy. There’s nothing natural about extreme inequality. It is man-made. It has to do with power. And we need to have the courage to say so.
This article was amended on 7th April 2016. Due to a mathematical error an earlier version said that “since 1960 the gap for Latin America has grown by 306%, the gap for sub-Saharan Africa has grown by 307%, and the gap for South Asia has grown by 296%. In other words, the global inequality gap has roughly tripled in size”. The gap has indeed tripled, but the percentages should read 206%, 207% and 196%.
我们生活在一个大变化的时代
希望有人能改变历史的重复
不再打一场少数人得益的战争

From Lenin to Davos: A stark warning on Capitalism's excesses
link: rt.com/op-edge/374207-lenin-davos-eight-billionaires/

The surprise over Oxfam’s recent report on global poverty is that anyone is surprised. The revelation that eight people own more wealth than the poorest half of humanity merely confirms that neoliberalism is working precisely as intended.
When the Russian Revolution occurred a hundred years ago in 1917, it did so in response to an economic order that had been responsible for the most devastating global conflict the world had seen, one that left 17 million killed and millions more wounded and maimed.

are we really saying that the aforementioned eight multi-billionaires deserve to enjoy so much wealth, while the 3.6 billion human beings who own so little deserve their poverty?

In the same week that wider members of the economic and political elite enjoy their annual Davos jamboree, otherwise known as the World Economic Forum, 154,000 children will die due to extreme poverty.

The end result, history reveals, was cataclysmic societal collapse of a kind that no-one should make the mistake of believing could never happen again. It could.

We again urge the relevant side in the United States not to allow the Taiwan authority to send a so-called delegation to the United States to attend the presidential inauguration and not have any form of official contact with Taiwan,”

the one-China principle is the cornerstone of the healthy development of [Sino-US] relations, and we do not want any interference or destruction of this political foundation.”

NATO and US troops] are the guarantee of Poland’s physical independence from military pressure exerted by Russia, until we build our own armed forces, until we can manage entirely in our own dimension,”

According to our latest evaluations, there was a monthly average of 500 threatening cyber attacks last year against NATO infrastructure that required intensive intervention from our experts ... That's an increase of 60 percent compared to 2015,” he said.
“Most of these attacks did not stem from private individuals but were sponsored by national institutions of other countries,”

Officials from the Israeli Defense Ministry and the US Missile Defense Agency delivered the first operational "Arrow 3" interceptor missiles to the Israeli Air Force on Wednesday. The Arrow 3 is intended to shoot down ballistic missiles while they are still in space. It also raises the chances of a successful interception by other missiles if the first interceptor does not hit the target. An additional advantage of the exo-atmospheric Arrow 3 is the reduction of the risk of being hit by pieces of a missile, or of being exposed to biological, chemical or radioactive materials. According to foreign media reports, the missiles are to be placed at an air force base in the area of the city of Beit Shemesh.

British tanks sent through Channel Tunnel to prepare for war
link: rt.com/uk/374209-army-tanks-channel-tunnel/

It is expected that rail will be the primary means that UK armor will be relocated to Germany in the event of NATO’s rapid reaction force being deployed for combat.